Candy Wrappers and Wedding Rings
by greenschist
Summary: Hermione is engaged to Ron, but after eating an expired WWW sweet, she insists she's married to Fred. Fred reluctantly agrees to play along until she recovers but doesn't know what to do when his feelings for her begin to change.


**Disclaimer:** JKR creates, I just borrow.

**A/N:** This is mostly canon compliant except Fred's not dead (yay!) and I selectively ignore parts of the epilogue.

* * *

The healer watched as his patient threaded her fingers through her long brown hair and searched her own scalp for a goose egg. After a moment, she exhaled and shook her head, letting her hands fall to her lap. "Healer Ludlow, I feel fine. I'd like to see my family now."

She was calm, poised…Ludlow had been impressed with her composure from the moment she arrived at St. Mungo's, but perhaps it was to be expected from the famously unshakable Hermione Granger. In the years since the war, her serene countenance had appeared on everything from the cover of _Witch Weekly_ to the front page of the _Prophet_. She and her fiancé—Ludlow glanced down at her chart to confirm the name—Mr. Ron Weasley, were regularly featured in the society column, particularly since the announcement of their engagement.

"No headache?" The quiet scritch of his quill filled the room as he made a notation on her chart.

"None. So why am I here? And why are you asking me these questions?" She touched her head again. "I don't have a head injury."

"We simply want to be certain you are all right." He eyed her over the top of her chart. "Do you remember your arrival here this morning?"

She nodded. "My family brought me."

His quill scratched across the parchment again. "Do you remember why?"

"I became woozy and fell in the shop." She looked off into the middle distance. "I…when I entered the shop, I grabbed a candy from the dish by the register like I always do, but I felt ill as soon as I ate it." She shrugged. "I can't imagine why. That dish has been a fixture on the counter since before Victoire was born. It's supposed to be full of harmless sweets, ones that _won't_ turn little Weasleys into canaries or make them spit up frogspawn. There shouldn't be anything there I haven't eaten a hundred times before."

"The particular confection you consumed was expired, I'm afraid. _Greatly_ expired, long past the shelf life of its magical ingredients."

"Oh, of all the…" Her brow wrinkled before she burst out laughing. "How careless! They're lucky I'm the one who ate it. If it had been one of the little ones or, heaven forbid, Ginny, the shop would be just a smoking crater in Diagon Alley by now." She dabbed her eyes with the edge of her sheet. "Really, though, I'm fine now. When may I expect to be discharged?"

"Once we are certain there are no lasting effects." The healer held his quill poised over her chart. "Where did you go this morning?"

"This morning?" She frowned, puzzled. "I don't…" She shook her head as if trying to clear it. "I'm…not sure." She caught herself, sat up straighter in the bed, and began speaking more confidently. "Just running errands around the Alley, nothing memorable."

Ludlow glanced at her chart. The correct answer was _House hunting with her fiancé. _His quill marked the parchment with a definitive scritch.

"Let's begin again from the top, shall we?" He ignored her sigh. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Hermione Jean Weasley."

_Scritch._ "So you are a member of the Weasley family?"

She settled against her pillow. "Since my marriage a year ago, yes." A small smile graced her lips. "But I've been close to them since Ron and I became friends when I was twelve, so it feels like forever."

_Scritch._ "Who is the Minister for Magic?"

"Kingsley Shacklebolt."

_Scritch._ "What was the date of Voldemort's demise?"

"The second of May, 1998."

_Scritch._ "What year did you complete your education at Hogwarts?"

"The following year, 1999. And before you ask, I earned ten N.E.W.T.s, and, yes, I remember what they were for."

_Scritch._ "What is your address?"

"93 Diagon Alley, above Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. I live there with my husband."

Ludlow lowered the quill and chart and trained his eyes upon her face. "And your husband's name?"

"Fred Weasley, of course!"

* * *

When the healer entered the corridor, shutting Hermione's door behind him, they all shot out of their chairs as if they had been fired from a Muggle cannon.

Well, not quite, Fred reconsidered. He, Ron, and Harry shot out of their chairs. At eight-and-a-half months pregnant, Ginny only had two speeds now: slow and still. She remained in her chair, pinning Healer Ludlow with her piercing gaze. "How is Hermione?" she demanded.

"Yeah, has she stopped acting like a madwoman yet?" Ron's arms were crossed, his ears were red, and he maintained his distance on the other side of Harry, as far from Fred as he could get and still be in front of Hermione's room.

Fred bit back a sigh. He had tried to talk to Ron while they waited for news and been rebuffed. All right, so he had accidently half-poisoned Ron's fiancée with a sweet that should have been eaten over four years ago. So she had turned her back on Ron kissed him instead when she recovered from her swoon. So she had insisted they were married and living together above the shop. Was that any reason to be so prickly? It wasn't as if Hermione's delusion was permanent. The healer would surely pronounce her back to normal right now, and she and Ron would be back on the express train to wedded bliss before any of them could say Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

"I'm afraid there is little change in her condition," the healer said gravely, dashing Fred's hopes.

Ron made a choked sound, and Harry put a reassuring hand on his arm. "She's still insisting…" He trailed off for Ron's sake.

The healer had no such compunction. "That she is Mrs. Fred Weasley, yes."

Fred flinched.

"Her memory loss and delusions are quite specific," the healer continued. "Other than believing herself to be married to the wrong man, she is aware of life and her history, and she can speak knowledgeably about both the present and the past."

"She's just forgotten about me," Ron said tautly. Under Harry's restraining hand, the muscles in his arms visibly corded as he curled his hands into fists. Fred was thankful for the first time to have Harry and Ginny between them.

Ludlow shifted and lowered his gaze to Hermione's chart. "Not entirely, sir. She does remember your friendship. And with great fondness, too, I should say."

"Friendship," Ron snorted. "We're supposed to be married in three months. She should remember a hell of a lot more than _'friendship._'"

Ginny took pity on them all and drew the healer's attention down to her. "Fred was the first to reach Hermione after she passed out." She glanced at Fred for confirmation and he nodded. "Could her fixation on him have something to do with the fact that he was the first person she saw when she opened her eyes? There are love potions that work that way, aren't there?"

"There are, but based upon the list of ingredients provided, it seems unlikely to have occurred here." Ludlow flipped through his parchment looking for something. "Ah, here we are: sugar, balm of Gilead, skullcap, St. John's Wort, ground billywig carapace, powdered dragon's blood…what sort of candy was this, Mr. Weasley?"

"And explain how Hermione ended up eating it." Harry's voice was as dark as his expression.

Fred studied the floor, tracing one cracked tile square with the toe of his shoe. "It's a One-Minute Holiday. They started out part of our Skiving Snackbox collection, a good way to ignore the teacher for a minute or two and refresh yourself." He spread his hands out before them. "All it's supposed to do is create a mild but pleasant hallucination, like taking a mini holiday without leaving your chair. All in all, it was similar to our Patented Daydream Charm but weak enough to be sold to the under sixteen set. We saw the potential for problems, so we didn't produce them for very long; our last batch was made just before Dumbledore died."

"1997," the healer murmured, making a note, while Harry sharply demanded, "What sort of problems?"

Fred shrugged. "Kids gorging on them…walking headfirst into lampposts, letting their baby sisters juggle knives while they sat at the table in a daze, that kind of thing. George and I decided it would be dangerous to keep making them."

Ginny raised one fine red brow. "Since when do the two of you care about being safe?"

"It was a brief attack of responsibility, one we've happily recovered from." His eyes met Harry's. "We didn't want another one of our products to lead to someone being hurt." Memory of the Peruvian Darkness Powder passed between them, and Harry nodded.

"None of this explains how Hermione ended up in a hospital bed," Ron barked.

"Or how one ended up in the kids' candy dish," Ginny added.

"I know." Tired, he rubbed the back of his neck while he gathered his thoughts. "I was cleaning up the shop this morning, sweeping under the shelves for the first time in, well, maybe…ever." He smiled weakly but no one smiled back. He sighed. "I found it under the shelf where we keep the Pygmy Puffs. I was going to set it aside to show George, maybe talk to him about modifying the formula and reintroducing them, when Verity caught a kid trying to nick fireworks. The little git ran for it, hit the shelf I was levitating and sent it spinning, and the next thing I know, Puffs are flying everywhere.

"I tossed the One-Minute Holiday toward the counter while I dealt with that mess. It must've landed in the candy dish." He met his brother's furious eyes. "I'm sorry, Ron."

Under the harsh hospital light, his brother was splotchy with rage. "You're sorry? You could have poisoned her! You made her forget me!"

Harry restrained him, keeping him in place. "The one you should be apologizing to is Hermione, Fred."

"I'm not certain that is the best course of action," the healer interjected, watching the interplay before him.

"Why the bloody hell not?"

Ludlow held up one hand, asking Ron for patience. "What happened when Miss Granger entered your shop this morning, Mr. Weasley?" he asked, directing his question toward Fred.

Fred kept a wary eye on Ron. "I didn't see her come in—I was on my stomach trying to get the last of the Pygmy Puffs out from under a display—but she said hello, and I heard her walk behind the counter on her way toward the back room." Assured that Harry was not going to let Ron pound the floor with his face, he turned fully toward the healer. "She comes by the store all the time. She and Angelina, George's wife, have become good friends, and she also helps us out some with the bookkeeping side of things."

Ludlow nodded.

"She made a noise." Fred closed his eyes, remembering: a quiet moan, a weak, trembling, voice calling out his name, and then that terrible thud as she hit the floor. "By the time I got to my feet, she was facedown behind the counter."

The healer consulted her chart again. "You said she was only unconscious for a moment."

"Yeah." He opened his eyes again. From his perspective, it had taken forever to run across the shop and jump over the counter, but he knew it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. "She was already stirring by the time I reached her."

"And her delusional state was obvious from the start?"

"Yeah," he said again. He had turned her over, and when she opened her eyes, he was stunned by the gentle, loving glow shining within. _Fred_, she said again, but this time, her tone was low, intimate, a lover's voice. Her slender fingers wove into the hair at his nape as she drew him down for a kiss. Her lips were cool and satiny, her tongue a shockingly hot enticement when it traced along his bottom lip. He had been so stunned, he let her pull him in at first, but he would have backed away once he really grasped what was happening. He was _certain_ he would have pushed her away.

Too bad Ron had entered the shop and broken them apart with a scream before Fred could prove it to everyone.

"She…" he glanced at Ron, who now looked sick. "Well, she didn't treat me like a brother anymore."

"Hmm." Ludlow tapped his chin with his quill. "You were there, weren't you, Mr. Weasley?" he asked Ron.

"I came in just in time for the big kiss," he answered through gritted teeth.

"And you confronted them? Reminded Miss Granger of her commitment to you?"

"Of course, I did!" Pale-faced, Ron glared daggers at them all. "She laughed and asked why shouldn't she kiss her _husband_. She doesn't remember our relationship at all!"

The healer nodded. "I see. Yes, that is consistent with the behavior she has displayed while under observation." He tucked his quill into his robes and rolled Hermione's chart into a tidy tube.

The four stared as he folded his hands and stood calmly. "Well?" Harry asked. "Don't you have a recommendation?"

"I do, but I fear, Mr. Potter, that none of you will like it." The portly healer cleared his throat. "I recommend we do nothing."

Fred blinked. "Nothing?" he and Ginny parroted in unison. Quick on their heels, Ron demanded, "What sort of recommendation is that?"

"A moderate one, Mr. Weasley. One that I believe will be best for Miss Granger, even while it is difficult for all of you." The healer summoned a sympathetic expression, but Fred thought it sat strangely on his face. He suspected empathy was not the healer's strong suit.

"What exactly do you mean by 'do nothing,' Healer Ludlow?" Harry asked. "How can that help Hermione?"

A patient wept loudly down the hall, and Ludlow moved out of a harried nurse's way before answering. "Miss Granger is not in danger. She retains all of her abilities, a comprehensive knowledge of the world, and most of her memories. From her perspective, nothing is wrong. Attempting to simply reinsert her into a life she no longer remembers, or pursuing a more aggressive course of treatment, perhaps where we confine her to the spell damage ward and force her through potion therapy, will only traumatize her and might even make her determined to hold onto her fantasy just because it's something safe."

Ron shook free of Harry's arm and spun to face the wall. Harry watched him silently for a moment before resuming his seat next to Ginny and reaching for her hand. "You're saying it's better to let her be deluded rather than force reality down her throat. If Hermione were herself, I doubt she would agree with you."

"But she is not herself, Mr. Potter, and that is the point. I still strongly recommend you indulge her, and let her mind attempt to work its way through this before opting for more drastic treatment."

"How far do we take this 'indulgence,' Healer?" Ginny's gaze drew Fred's attention to Ron, whose shoulders were beginning to shake.

"As far as Miss Granger needs," he said firmly. "Move her and her belongings into the place she believes should be her home, let her call herself 'Fred Weasley's wife' for a time, and see if she can find her way back to herself."

_Merlin's hairy legs_, Fred thought. Move Hermione into his flat, let her pretend to be his wife and, by extension, force him to play the part of her husband? Play house with his brother's fiancée? How could this do anything but ultimately hurt everyone involved? "You expect me to live with my future sister-in-law? As her husband?"

"Yes," the healer replied with righteous conviction. When Ron hit the wall with his fist, he blushed, catching on. "Within reason, of course. Miss Granger's perception of your relationship is far different than the reality. That will be something you, um—" flustered, he flapped his hands, "must deal with until she recovers."

"For how long?" Fred's airway was shrinking down to the size of a pinhole.

"Well, that remains to be seen." Ludlow's twitchy fingers smoothed over his thinning hair. "As I understand it, the effects of your One-Minute Holiday candy are supposed to last only for a short duration, correct?"

Doomed, Fred hung his head. "About thirty seconds to two minutes, depending on how long it's chewed before being swallowed."

"As you have no doubt figured out already, Miss Granger has been under the effects for over seven hours now with no sign of it weakening. I don't need to tell you that the relationship between magic and memory is complicated and not perfectly understood."

Weak-kneed, Fred sat back down on the other side of Ginny. _This could go on forever. She could spend the rest of her life thinking she's in love with me and not Ron, and it's all my fault for being a careless arse. _Ginny patted his hand, a small mercy.

The nurse who had bustled past them minutes ago stuck her head into the hall and called Ludlow for assistance. He nodded and began inching her way but not before telling Fred: "I'd like daily reports from you, Mr. Weasley, since you'll be in a position to watch her most closely. If there is any significant change, for either better or worse, bring her in immediately. Otherwise, I shall evaluate her in person in two weeks. We can adjust her course of treatment then."

He hesitated, taking in Fred, Harry, and Ginny's pale faces and the pitiful sight of Ron, face turned against the wall and shoulders quivering. "Good luck," he said and disappeared down the hall.

Fred clasped his hands between his knees and stared at the floor, mind whirling. If he'd had better aim, the candy would have hit the register instead of the candy dish, and they wouldn't be sitting here now. If he'd had worse aim, he would have missed the counter completely, and he'd be finishing his pub dinner at the Leaky Cauldron about now and heading for home. If he and George had become the Junior Ministers in charge of Paperclip Counting and Navel Gazing at the Ministry like Mum had wanted, they never would have invented One-Minute Holidays in the first place, and—

"Where are you going?" Ginny interrupted his thoughts. She leaned forward in her chair, looking down the hall at Ron's retreating back.

"Away." His voice was like gravel.

"Now?" Ginny struggled to her feet, Harry and Fred supporting her from each side. She put her hands on her hips. "You're leaving Hermione? When she's hurt—through no fault of her own—and needs you?"

"She forgot me! She forgot _us!" _Ron whirled on them all, voice shaking. His eyes were red, and Fred could see the tear tracks drying on his face. "Out of everything in her life, everything in the _world_, that she could have wiped out of her memory, she chose me. I think it's damn clear Hermione _doesn't_ need me."

"You act like she did this on purpose!"

Harry touched his wife's arm. "You heard the healer, Ron. She still knows you're her friend—and she's going to need her friends to help her through this."

The two friends gazed at each other across the empty corridor.

Ron broke first, shaking his head. "I can't. You know I…I just can't." He covered his face with his hands for a moment, and when they dropped, he looked harder and more composed. "If she asks for me, tell her—" his mouth twisted down, "—tell her I hope she feels better soon."

"Prat," Ginny muttered, and he started down the hall again.

"Ron!" Fred surged to his feet.

Ron stopped but kept his back turned.

Fred chewed his lip. "I'm sorry, little brother. I really am. Don't blame Hermione for any of this 'cause it's all on me."

"Piss off, Fred," and Fred felt it would have been better if Ron had been angry or hateful or anything other than as sad and beaten as he sounded. He watched his youngest brother disappear around the corner toward the lifts.

Even if Hermione recovered tomorrow, he wondered, would he and Ron ever fix this mess between them?

"I don't know where we'll put her books." Harry's murmur, low and sad, drew Fred's attention. He was helping Ginny pull her hair out of the neck of her cardigan, the two of them clearly preparing to leave as well.

She turned in his arms and kissed his jaw. "We'll find a place."

They looked into each other's eyes, ignoring Fred as he goggled at them both.

"It'll be all right," Ginny promised her husband softly, and he forced a small smile before kissing her forehead.

"You're _leaving?_" Fred asked shrilly and they broke apart.

"Yeah." Harry's speech was clipped and irritated. "Give us three hours."

"If we finish sooner, we'll contact the hospital to let you know," Ginny put in.

"Let me know what? Three hours for what? What happened to all that stuff about friendship?" _Don't leave me here with her,_ he almost begged.

They both looked at him like he was an idiot. "We need to bring Hermione's things to your flat," Ginny said with exaggerated slowness. "So she can continue to believe she lives there. Remember?"

He wanted to protest. Hermione Granger's books and clothes all over the bachelor flat where he had lived alone since George's wedding? It made the whole situation seem that much more irrevocable. He bit the inside of his cheek. "I'll do it. You two could stay here with Hermione."

Harry rolled his eyes, muttered something that sounded very much like "git," and stalked down the hallway.

"What was that for?" Fred asked his sister defensively. "It makes sense; it's my flat, I know where things go."

Ginny shook her head. "If I or Fleur or Angelina was in a bed at St. Mungo's, where would our husbands be?"

His shoulders slumped. "With you."

"Exactly. Hermione now expects you to be there for her before anyone else." Her expression softened the tiniest bit, and she reached up to touch his cheek. "Time to start thinking like a husband, Fred. For Hermione's sake."

She waited until he nodded, and she turned and waddled down the hall after Harry.

Alone, Fred faced the hospital door, knowing he had to turn the knob and go inside. What would she say to him? What was he supposed to say to her?

_Darling, I was so worried._

_How you doin', babe?_

_Honey, I'm home!_

His head hit the wooden doorframe. If he couldn't get through the first five minutes with Hermione, how was he supposed to get through the next two weeks?

"Are you all right?"

He spun. A severe-looking nurse with a nose that would have put Snape's to shame scrutinized him through rheumy grey eyes. "I'm fine."

She sniffed. "You're loitering."

He wanted to ask where the hall patrol had been when he had been one of a group of four loitering with a healer, but he had caused enough trouble for the day. "I apologize."

She sniffed again. "There is a tearoom upstairs."

Going to the tearoom would certainly be preferable to facing Hermione in her room but…

_Time to start thinking like a husband, Fred._

He gestured toward the door. "Thanks, but I'm supposed to be in here." Under her close supervision, he opened the door just wide enough and backed inside, shutting the door in the her face and bracing himself for Hermione's reaction.

There was no cry of welcome, no _Fred_ murmured in a surprisingly sexy voice, just music from the bedside wireless turned on low. He took the time to compose his features into what he hoped was a husbandly smile before turning to face her. At the sight before him, his breath gusted out of his lungs with such force that he bent with his hands on his knees until he could calm down.

She was sound asleep.

Weak with relief, Fred dragged himself upright and crossed the room to her bedside. She lay pale and pretty under the blue hospital blanket, one hand across her stomach, the other over her head. Her wavy hair was spread across the pillow, shining brown and gold in the low light. He could see her eyes moving behind her violet-tinged lids, and he hoped her dreams were kinder than their reality.

He snagged the chair and brought it close. Although he tried to be quiet, the legs scraped against the floor, and she shifted restlessly, turning her head toward him. Her lips parted.

_Call for Ron, Hermione,_ he willed her silently. _Call his name. Let me tell him you called for him. _

But she quieted, and the moment passed.

Disappointed, he sank into the chair, to watch her sleep and wait for the time to take her home.

-TBC

* * *

**A/N2:** And so it begins! I hope to update roughly every week, so if you liked this chapter, be on the lookout for Chapter 2: _Welcome Home, Mrs. Weasley._


End file.
